Possible anti-Semitic attack on man in Williamsburg

Police were investigating on Tuesday a late-night Williamsburg attack as a possible anti-Semitic crime.

The victim, a 65-year-old man, was first hit from behind as he walked west on Wythe Avenue at about 11:15 p.m. on Monday night by a man and woman who started laughing at him. They struck his right ear with an unknown object.

They then struck him five or six more times in the face before they fled, police said.

"Jews in Brooklyn have unfortunately suffered from some deeply troubling anti-Semitic incidents recently -- from Holocaust graffiti on the outside of a Yeshiva in Flatbush, to the ransacking of a Jewish business in Crown Heights, to a visibly identifiable Orthodox Jew being targeted for violence at a subway station," The Anti-Defamation League's New York Regional Director, Evan Bernstein, said in a statement. "All of these incidents continue to make our community feel highly vulnerable."

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Alison covers law enforcement and breaking news. She previously worked at The Wall Street Journal, and has a master’s degree from Northwestern University and bachelor’s from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.